


And I Will Love Thee Still My Dear

by Phoenixflames12



Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Book 5: The Fiery Cross, F/M, Fluff, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 08:51:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9540470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenixflames12/pseuds/Phoenixflames12
Summary: Claire and Jamie share a moment during the long march through North Carolina to quench the fires of rebellion and try to banish the ghosts of the battles that haunt them both





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Robert Burns's poem' My Love is like a Red, Red Rose' as sung by Bryn Terfel in this youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PD4k0v4cOM

And I Will Love Thee Still My Dear

She sits for a while, after Roger leaves her for what comfort he could find to make his bed, staring into the glowing embers of the dying fire.

 

The grease from the corn dodger has grown cold on her fingers, the fat stuck against numb skin.

 

Around the fire, the campsite is slowly ravelling itself into a restless sleep, the subtle stamp and shift of the horses, the shadow of a rounded rump restless in the quiet.

 

She cannot see Jamie, but is sure that he is there. Is sure that he is taking comfort among the animals, among the simple stamp of hooves and brush of velvet muzzles, so different from the memories that Roger had stirred within him.

 

‘ _He wasn’t just a soldier. He was an officer,’_ she had said the words with slow conviction, remembering the long, sleepless nights in Amiens during the last war, of the pale, shadowed faces of the men who been had put in charge of so many lives now lost to the German guns. Remembers how she had seen Jamie cradle Rupert’s body in arms that shook; the broad, quick face blank and bloody in death, the span of his shoulders heaving with grief under the folds of his plaid.

 

‘ _Farewell… Farwell mo_ _ghraidh… May we meet again…’_

 

Remembers the haunted, handsome faces; chiselled and cut with sharp cheekbones and often or not, the faint stubble of a moustache lining their upper lips, now slick with sweat.

 

Some had nodded to her as she had made her way about her rounds, some whispering a hoarse word of thanks as she pressed a cup of what passed for cold tea to white lips, gripping their hands in a moment of reassurance that she knew that she and they did not feel entirely.

 

_‘It will be alright, you’ll see. We’ll get you back on your feet in no time.’_

 

_How many times had she said those words and smiled a forced smile that she did not feel?_

_How many times had she watched them nod in return and yet still seen the ghosts of what they had seen, of what they would see, rise sharp and clear behind pain dulled eyes?_

_How many times had she held the hands of soldiers shaking through their nightmares, bathing their foreheads, holding bowls for their vomit, and whispering words of consolation that neither nurse nor patient truly believed?_

Pushing the cold dough into the pocket of her skirt, she stands; brushing the crumbs of her skirt, the wool catching on the cool, wet bark of the log.

 

The night is cooler now, the faint murmurs of men settling down to snatch a bit of sleep, faint across the watchfires.

 

_How many of them remembered? Or worse, imagined?_

_How many would remember when all of this, whatever came of this, was over?_

She had always thought that the soldiers she had nursed in the field hospitals; the fresh -faced privates whose youth had been carved out of them by the toil of war, the hardened captains with their gruff remarks, the officers who had tried to smile with their shaking fingers, voices hoarse from calling to their men under the wail of shellfire, had seen of the worst of it.

 

Now she is not so sure.

 

Turning her back on the fire, she begins to pick her way towards the horse lines.

 

 The air is still and crystal clear, the stars a blanket of time shimmering against the velvet sky.

 

Her senses slowly open in the dark, her nose filled with the scent of rich, hard earth. From overhead she hears the soft, melancholy hoot of an owl followed by the faint rustle of wings as it launched itself off into the night, the scampering feet of something small fleeing into the cover of the dried grass.

 

She passes men cocooned in their blankets, still and shrouded as they huddled together for warmth.

 

 _How many times has she seen such a sight?_ The thought is sudden and spiked, the knowledge that war did not look at the faces of its dead suddenly bitter in her heart.

 

She had seen the same at Amiens and Preston, felt the qualms and shivers that enveloped her at the knowledge that this time tomorrow, or if not tomorrow, then soon; these men she passed might be dead.

 

The walk through the horse lines is soft and quiet, the stamp and snort of the animals with their musky scent rising in waves of heat in the still night air hushing her heart as she searches for him. A curious head occasionally thrusts their muzzle into her pocket, whiskers nuzzling hopefully for a forgotten smattering of barley husks.

 

‘Jamie?’

 

Her voice is hardly above a whisper, the question catching in the cold.

 

He is wrapped in his plaid, lying at the feet of a large bay mare with a roman nose, kind eyes and a stark white blaze that shines in the torchlight.

 

A sudden cough, a deep, wheezing sound rumbling from his throat, that sends a shiver down her spine.

 

_By rights he should be in bed with a hot brick at his feet and a mustard plaster on his chest, but being on the road does not allow for such luxuries and oh, how she wishes she could take him into her arms and banish all his hurts!_

‘Cl…. Sassenach…?’ A sudden, hacking fit of coughing breaks the question short as he struggles through the folds of his plaid to meet her, slanted eyes wide and questioning.

 

‘Yes. I’m here, I’m here,’ she moves to meet him, pulling off her shawl in the process, swaddling him in it, ignoring her own shivers.

 

‘Ye… Ye’ll freeze…’ He raises a sceptical eyebrow, face still dark with dreams.

 

 She shakes her head, pulling herself down to meet him and the edge of his plaid around her shoulders.

 

‘I couldn’t sleep, knowing you were out here,’ she says by way of explanation; burying herself against the crook of his shoulder, listening to the steady thrum of his heart thudding through his shirt.

 

He nods, accepting her into the embrace, the thread connecting them through linen and plaid and skin tightening as he rests his chin on the top of her head, pressing a lingering kiss to her forehead as he does so.

 

‘I couldna sleep,’ he murmurs, eyes distant as they look down the horse lines and over the scattered campsite, the fires glowing and flickering in the velvet night.

 

She can feel the slight tightening of his fingers around her, the hoarse hitch of breath in his throat, almost invisible movements that tells her that he is worried.

 

‘Penny for your thoughts?’ She strives to keep the question light, feeling the tension coursing through the lines and bends of his hands; the skin scarred from a life led looking out for the lives of others.

 

‘I keep thinking of the men,’ he says at last, the words slow and hesitant, catching in the dark.

 

‘Of you, _mo Sorcha.’_ She looks up at him at that, seeing the planes of his face shadowed in the torchlight that lit the beaten track. His eyes are faraway; the expression old and hooded, the weight of memory and leadership glowing in the dark.

 

 _Sorcha,_ he had called her.

 

 _Sorcha_ that was her name in Gaelic, _Sorcha_ that meant light.

 

She presses closer, reaching to press his hand in what she hopes is a gesture of reassurance, her lips brushing against the hard, knurled knuckles.

 

‘This won’t be Culloden Jamie’, she says at last, looking up to see a faint, pained smile quirk at her husband’s lips as he gazed down at her. The smile still holds ghosts, she can see; floating closer and closer to the surface as she follows his gaze, taking in the flickering circle of watchfires, the shadowed hills glowering over the valley.

 

Remembering the last time that they had stood like this, their final requests unspoken in the snatched reprise before their lives were changed irreversibly.

 

_‘Tomorrow I will die. This child… is all that will be left of me. Ever. I ask ye Claire, I beg ye, see it safe.’_

She presses closer to him, feeling their twinned heartbeat thud in unity against the soft, unravelling night.

 

He doesn’t reply, but she feels the weight of his nose burying at the nape of her neck; a soft, lingering kiss lost within the weight of her hair.

 

‘Don’t be afraid, Jamie,’ she says at last; her words echoing their first night back in Edinburgh; the words spoken then filled with a desperate desire and yet hindered by the ghosts of the people they were, the people they had become.

 

She can feel his smile pressed against her hair, a quirked watermark against his mouth, tremulous in the dark.

 

‘I do love thee _Sassenach’,_ he murmurs at last; the weight of his hands pressing tighter under her ribcage, fixing her to him, making them whole.

 

The fear is still lingering in his voice, but the fires of conviction are flickering there too and she turns in his arms, finding his lips in silent answer in the dark.

* * *

_**Fin** _

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, questions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


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